Safety nets are commonly used on construction projects to provide a containment device for personnel and debris that may fall from a building under construction. Further, such safety netting is required when construction workers are exposed to vertical drops of more than six feet. Federal regulations for worker safety (see 29 C.F.R. § 1910 et seq.) are promulgated and enforced by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (“OSHA”), a part of the U.S. Department of Labor, and OSHA-approved state agencies, such as Cal/OSHA, which is part of the Department of Industrial Relations for the State of California.
However, current techniques for providing safety nets on the job site typically involve first installing the safety net structures to service the lower floors of a building under construction, then breaking down and removing the safety net structures, and then completely reinstalling one or more safety net structures on higher level floors for each portion of the building as additional floors are built out. This activity results in significant time and expense for every high-rise construction project.
Thus, it would be desirable to avoid or minimize such costly efforts, for example, by providing a safety net apparatus that could readily be raised up to higher floors during construction without having to be completely removed, disassembled and reinstalled.